to students of style. Read it, and make up your mind about it; then I will
tell you--the first line of it is almost the first line of blank verse I
ever wrote in my life.

I have read about the French artists, the great masters of style, and
how they give ten years of their lives to writing things that are never
published. But I have noticed that when they are masters at last, and when
they do begin to publish--they very seldom have anything to say that I care
in the least to hear.

--My soul is centered upon _the thing_!

Let it be a test.

* * * * *

I am trying to be an artist; but I have never been able to study style. I
believe that the style of this great writer came from what he had to say.
You think about how he said it; but he thought about what he was saying.

It seemed strange to me when I thought of it. With all my trembling
eagerness, with all my preparation, such an idea as "practise" never came
to me. How could I cut the path until I had come to the forest?

All my soul has been centered upon _living_. Since this book first took
hold of me--eighteen months ago--I could not tell with what terrible
intensity I have lived it. They said to me, "You are a poet; why don't you
write verses for the magazines?" But I was not a writer of verses for the
magazines.